Dr. Laura Y. Podzikowski

Dr. Laura Podzikowski
  • Postdoctoral Researcher

Contact Info

Research —

Faculty Sponsor: Sharon Billings

Research Description: Laura is broadly interested in researching ecosystem ecology in the context of global environmental change. Her dissertation work focused on the ecosystem consequences of plant diversity, specifically testing drivers, establishing patterns, and exploring the effects of altered precipitation. Her current work in the Billings lab explores at multiple scales the feedbacks between vegetation, climate, and soil structure, as well as how those might change in the future.

Selected Publications —

Podzikowski LY, M Lee, C Fahey, SL Flory, J Wright, and RP Phillips. Biogeochemical effects of a forest understory plant invasion depend more on dissimilar nutrient economies than invader biomass. In revision.

Wang, G, HM Burrill, LY Podzikowski, M Eppinga, J Zhang, F Zhang, P Schultz, and JD Bever. Dilution of specialist pathogens drives feedback and yield advantage in plant mixtures. In revision.

Podzikowski, LY, MM Heffernan, and JD Bever. Plant diversity and grasses increase root biomass in a rainfall and grassland diversity manipulation. In review.

Podzikowski, LY, EB Duell, HM Burrill, and JD Bever. Decomposition impacts on biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships: litter decomposition generates overyielding when local adaptation of saprotrophic microbes is the underlying driver. Submitted.

O’Brien JM, SK Hamilton, L Podzikowski, and N Ostrom. 2012. The fate of assimilated N in stream biofilms: an in-situ benthic chamber study. Freshwater Biology 57: 1113–1125

Selected Presentations —

Podzikowski, LY, G Wang, HM Burrill, B Foster, K Mecke, PS Schultz, JD Bever. 2022. Predicting alterations to diversity-productivity relationships across changing climates: complementarity increases with precipitation. Ecology Society of America, (ESA) Annual Meeting (oral)

Podzikowski, LY, Bever, JD. 2021. Plant community composition has divergent effects on carbon lost and gained from diversity. American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting (eLightning).

Podzikowski, LY, Foster, B, Mecke, K, and Bever, JD. 2021. Interactions between plant community composition and precipitation alter diversity effects on plant productivity. Ecology Society of America, (ESA) Annual Meeting, Virtual. (oral)

Podzikowski, LY, Wang, G, Burrill HM, Bever, JD. 2020. Evidence plant phylogenetic dispersion increases soil respiration in a biodiversity manipulation experiment. AGU, virtual (oral).

Podzikowski, LY, Foster, B, Mecke, K, and Bever, JD. 2020. Evidence resource partitioning in part explains biodiversity effects on plant productivity. ESA, Annual Meeting, Virtual. (oral)

Podzikowski L.Y, Lee M.R., Fahey C., Wright J.P., Flory S.L., Phillips R.P. 2017. Testing competing hypotheses about the biogeochemical consequences of invasion. ESA Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (poster)

Awards & Honors —

USDA-NIFA AFRI postdoctoral fellowship (2023)

USDA-NIFA AFRI pre-doctoral fellowship (2020)